About Me
Okay, I know that I call myself, Mrs. 50, here at my blog. For now, I can’t say much about who I am and that includes my real name. The main reason is that if our employers, friends, or even family find out, it could interfere or even jeopardize our plan. A conflict of interest is my main concern. I sometimes feel like I’ve been living a double life since I started a blog. Once, we’ve made our financial independence goal known, I’ll stop this whole anonymous thing.
I’m here to document our journey to financial independence. Blogging is a great way to do just that. This way I can talk freely about money. I have to accept that money is a sensitive subject to talk about. Not everybody wants to talk about money. If you want to create an awkward silence among friends or co-workers, ask how much they make or how much debt they have. You’ll probably get a strange look from your friends or co-workers. Money is a symbol of greed. But Money is truly a tool. It can help you achieve many things, including freedom. We make money and we deserve to spend it. There’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, I want my money to buy myself freedom. If you want to know why I created this blog, head to ABOUT page to learn more.
My Childhood Memory
At a young age, I always knew what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do with my life. I had planned out my life timeline as young as I could remember. Several things for sure were that I wanted to go to grad school, have a good paying career or a business of my own to create a great income stream so that I could get ahead quickly financially and ultimately to retire early. As time went by, I also learned that I didn’t have to trade my time or labor to make a living. I can live off passive income and I can be financially independent if I planned my life wisely.
My parents were a hard worker and they still are. They both worked full-time with decent salaries & great benefits. On top of their full-time jobs, they also earned a great income through side hustles. But my mom is a spender. So no matter how much they make, it always gets spent. I don’t like that so I learned to be a saver instead. However, since they were a great side hustler, I’ve learned a great deal from them on how to make extra money while working full-time.
It’s Not Always About Money, It’s About The Time
My dad was in the army and he was always away. My mom had a hard time finding a nanny (there was no daycare at the time), so she put me in a pre-K when I was just 2 years old. And I started first grade when I was 5. I had to repeat pre-school for several years and first grade twice as I was too young to move on to second grade. I believe that had given me a good head start in my academic life.
That being said, I managed to finish high school when I was only 14, a college at 19, and eventually a doctorate at 31. Why did I want to do this? It was because I wanted to shorten my schooling years so I could start earning & saving money as soon as I can. Hence, I could be on the path to early retirement as soon as I possibly can.
In my opinion, we spend too much time working. Don’t get me wrong. Work gives us fulfillment and a sense of contribution. But, think about time for a moment. You spend about 16 years schooling and about 40 years working (if you’re lucky and could retire at 62). If you get to live until 80, you only have less than 20 years to really live your life and that with limited physical ability.
Money is an important part of life. Early on, it puts foods on the tables and warms your house. But its ultimate power is to buy you time and ultimately to buy you freedom. The key is to use money as a tool to free yourself from the 9 to 5 grind to do what matters most in life.
Things Didn’t Always Go as Planned
No matter how well I planned my life timeline, things did get off track every now and then. Life is not a straight line. I met my husband when I was 20 while doing my college internship in the U.S.. We got married a year later. I moved 9,000 miles from home, left my dream of becoming a professor, with just the clothes on my back, and $100 in my pocket to start my new life with my newly-wed husband.
Shortly after I moved to the U.S., I sadly learned that my in-laws didn’t keep any of their promises.
Before moving to the U.S. I was accepted into a Master’s and Ph.D. program with a full scholarship back home. I was going to finish my degrees before getting married with my future husband. My then future husband was a sophomore in college and didn’t work. If I insisted to finish my degrees as planned, he would have been done with his degree and I could have been done with mine before we married. Certainly, my future husband couldn’t wait that long. His parents then made promises to us (myself and the hubby) and my family that if I were to left grad school they would financially support me until we could get on our feet and to pay for my Master’s if I was able to get into any Master’s program here in the U.S..
They broke all promises. Why? Are promises made to be broken? Was I stupid to trust them? Were my parents stupid to trust them?
Love is blind. Of course, I trusted them, moved, and married my husband without a doubt. The broken promises almost destroyed our relationship and marriage. It took me almost 10 years to get my life back together. Further, it took my husband and I almost 15 years to get our relationship straight and our finances together. The broken promises took a heavy toll on me. It caused me a lot of suffering emotionally and physically.
Everything was put on hold.
Regardless of family circumstances, I always come back to my life timeline that I wanted to achieve financial independence and to retire early. I didn’t give up totally (obviously, since I started this blog). In 2012, I quit my dream job to pursue financial independence. In 2016, I decided to purchase a space on the internet (hosting service) and finally launched my blog in 2017. And the first step of achieving financial independence as a family is having your spouse on board with your finances. My husband likes the idea. But at the same time, he is enjoying his job and no plan for early retirement. So we have come to the conclusion that our goal is to becoming financially independent by the time we both turn 50. Hence, By 50 Journey blog 🙂 .
Only time will tell if my early retirement dream will become a reality.
So What’s Next?
Until I can buy myself freedom, I’ll use this blog to tackle our way to financial independence. If you’re looking for ways to save money or want to learn how to get out of debt, you’re in the right place. I’ll use my blog to capture all of that. You’ll also get a grimes of my family finances. I managed to get rid of nearly $100K of debt on one income. We are living debt free (besides our new home mortgage). I hope that you learn something from my blog. I definitely look forward to learning from you as well. Please say hi in post comments or drop me a note in “CONTACT ME“. I’d be more than thrilled to hear from you.
You’ve come this far, might as well subscribe to my newsletter to get exclusive emails about deals, money-saving tips, debt payoff, financial independence, early retirement and more 🙂
That’s it. I hope to see you in my next posts.
Thanks for reading and your interest in my blog and our journey.
Mrs. 50
PS: If you’re not on Personal Capital yet, I highly recommend to sign up for it. It’s absolutely free. I log in to my account every day, actually several times a day. It helps me see our transactions from all financial accounts in one place. Since I started using Personal Capital, we are so much better at our finances. It tracks our net worth, helps plan our budget & cash flow, tracks our retirement goals, and even analyzes our investment fees (for free). You can sign up for Personal Capital account for free here.
Save Money. Live Your Life. Do What Matters.
By50Journey.com
Achieve financial independence through frugal living and side hustling
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